


Oh, the Things They Don't Know

by notcool



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Gen, Head Injury, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Protective Deceit | Janus Sanders, The Imagination Room (Sanders Sides), everyone's there but like just kinda backgroundish, the subconscious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27720787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcool/pseuds/notcool
Summary: Janus takes an accidental trip to the subconscious, and while the concussion isn't fun, at least he gets to say hi to some old friends
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders & Everyone
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	Oh, the Things They Don't Know

**Author's Note:**

> I had a theory on what other sides might be and so apparently I'm writing this at three in the morning because I can't get my brain to let it go

_ The truth is rarely pure and never simple. _

_ \- Oscar Wilde _

Virgil was mad.

He stomped through the spiky brush of the imagination’s dark side, every so often kicking at a pinecone or loose stick.

Was it childish? Maybe. An overreaction? Probably. Was that going to stop him though?

Hell no.

He would tromp through the dark forest until his anger fizzled out, and by the time he returned Janus would have chastised Remus into removing the severed heads from Virgil’s bedroom and hopefully even gotten the creative side to mop up the blood trail while he was at it.

Remus would apologize, albeit in a very Remus-like way, there was no doubt, but he’d still mean it, and Virgil would roll his eyes and grudgingly accept, Janus’ all-too-motherly glare fixed on the both of them the whole time.

He’d been out here, what, a half an hour now?

There were monsters in the trees - he saw their shadows, the almost too quick to see bursts of movement through the branches, the occasional flash of glowing eyes (more often than not grouped in odd numbers) - but Virgil knew they wouldn’t bother him.

No, they knew better than that. The other sides often forgot that he was fight as well as flight, but after the “Chimera Incident” as Remus named it, the monsters of the imagination never forgot what he was capable of.

So when Virgil wound his way through the forest, he was honestly surprised to find one of the said monsters out in the open, as they usually actively hid from him.

It was some hybrid of a rhinoceros, a goose, and what Virgil assumed to be a dinosaur of some kind, but it was hard to tell at this point.

The creature, however, only held his attention for a moment, Virgil quickly taking in the small, fluid apparition eating away at the forest floor.

The beast didn’t even seem to have noticed Virgil, also carefully inspecting the wavering inky pool, ears laid back and stance defensive as its far-too-many tongues flicked in apprehension.

It was Remus’ side of the imagination, so really, Virgil shouldn’t be surprised. This was, after all, rather tame by Remus’ standards.

But no, something was wrong. This wasn’t one of Remus’ creations. This was… something else. Some outside force, nibbling at the border of the imagination, slowly gnawing through the walls. There was a horrible feeling radiating out from it, but what it was he couldn’t place.

It felt… was empty an emotion?

Virgil shook himself. Whatever this was, it wasn’t supposed to be here, and while yes, this was Remus’ territory, Virgil happened to be the one standing there at that moment.

Virgil straightened and coughed pointedly, informing the resident abomination of his presence.

The beast’s heads swung around, its eyes going wide at the sight of him. It stepped sideways, and it’s foot barely - just barely! - brushed the edge of the apparition.

It all happened in less than a second, leaving Virgil to only stare in horror as the monster’s form twisted, twisting and melting like someone had poured water onto a freshly inked page, until it was nothing but a smudged blur of colour contorting in, in in, the apparition drinking it up with a low hiss.

The beast was gone.

Virgil stared. He blinked. He coughed, having forgotten momentarily that breathing was in fact a thing.

...Maybe he needed Remus on this after all.

All anger over severed heads cast aside, Virgil raised his hand, willing Remus to him.

It took a few summons before the creative side responded, but when he did appear, he had Janus at his side, which Virgil supposed wasn’t too bad.

“As much as I love the imagination,” Janus hummed. “I was hoping to stay inside today. It is starting to get cold out.”

“Sorry, kind of an emergency.” Virgil waved his arms towards the apparition, not sure what else to say.

Both sides followed his gaze, expressions going from mildly confused to very confused with a touch of concern (on Janus’ part, at least. It took a lot to make Remus genuinely worry about something).

“Huh,” Remus shuffled closer to narrow his eyes at it. “I didn’t make that.”

“What is it?” Virgil asked, glancing between them.

Janus’ brows were furrowed, and he reached out to put a hand on Remus’ shoulder, preventing him from getting any closer to the anomaly. “Don’t get any closer, both of you. It appears to be a door - and not a stable one.”

“A door to where?” Remus bounced on his heels a little, tugging against Janus’ grip questioningly, but not actually trying too hard to shake him off. “Narnia? Hell? Tir Na Nog? You gotta be more specific, Janny!”

Janus only frowned deeper in response. He stepped around Remus, towards the ‘door’. “Stay back. I will close it.”

He took another step towards it, and Virgil opened his mouth to protest.

“Wait, one of Ree’s monsters got too close and-”

Janus either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, kneeling and tugging off a glove without a word.

Virgil could only manage a half-cry in warning as Janus reached out with his bare hand, setting it into the inky darkness without an ounce of hesitation.

There was a swirl of distorted colour, bleeding ink twisting and swirling and sucked down a shadowy drain in less time than it took Remus to scream Deceit’s name.

The apparition was gone.

The forest was deathly silent.

Slowly, Virgil and Remus turned to look at each other, eyes wide.

“...Logan?” Virgil choked.

“Logan.” Remus agreed, voice shaky.

They clasped hands and sunk out of the imagination as fast as they could.

\-------

Janus had a vague memory of falling, but his head was throbbing, so he didn’t try too hard to think about it.

The air was stale, and tasted distantly of cedar. It was oddly specific, and reminded Janus of the few times Thomas had been in his grandma’s attic while visiting.

Voices. There were voices. There hadn't been voices before. At least… he didn’t think there had been. He did feel pretty out of it, though, so he supposed they could have been there all along.

Voices. Words. Voices meant talking. Talking… what were they saying again?

“Yeah, whatever you say pal. I’m still blaming you though.”

“As yes, so mature of you, Spite. Truly, I applaud such good will.”

“If I had a little less patience,” the third voice was slow and melodic, spoken like a weary lullaby, “I think I might have killed the both of you over ten minutes ago.”

“Ha! I’d like to see you try!”

Janus forced his eyes open, trying to arrange thoughts in a way they actually made sense in his head.

“I suppose that’s the thing, dear Spite. He wouldn’t even  _ have _ to try.”

“Oh, you wanna pull that card huh? And you call me childish!”

“If you could calm yourselves for more than a fraction of a second, I believe our visitor is waking up.”

Janus blinked, squinting to take in the face hovering near him.

He seemed to be lying on the ground, outside somewhere, though where he had no idea. The sky was a hazy grey, and the air itself hazy as well, as though the whole place was haunted by an impossibly thin fog.

To say he recognized the face would seem to be rather obvious - they all looked like Thomas, after all - but he did, actually, recognize the face.

“...Apathy?” He croaked, wincing at the scratch of his own voice.

The side nodded, humming and offering Janus pale, nearly ghostly hand. “It has been awhile, Deceit.”

Janus took the hand, but only managed to get sitting up, head immediately spinning and forcing him to just stay there, eyes closed, breathing.

Apathy’s hand stayed with his, cool thumb absently stroking Janus’ wrist. “I apologize for the technical difficulties. There are not usually breaches so far out - it took us a bit to get out here.”

Janus only nodded, eyes still closed, focusing on Apathy’s soft, rhythmic speech to help ground himself. He breathed some more, tiredly determining he had somehow wound up in the subconscious himself, rather than simply closing the rift. “Why… why am I here?”

“Tried to seal the breach from your side,” one of the earlier voices chirped. “Probs ended up on the wrong side of the door when it closed. Like, how the hell did you manage that?”

There was a distinct  _ smack _ followed by an indigent “Hey!” that had a grin tugging at Janus’ lips despite not even knowing who exactly was there.

Apathy sighed. “I suppose I should also apologize for these idiots. Unlike the breaches, however, I fear I am unable to repair this calamity.”

“Aps, if I had even a remote sense of honor, I would probably punch you for that comment.”

Janus finally opened his eyes, vision swimming a bit but only for a moment. He took in Apathy, wrapped in faded deep greens, kneeling beside him.

The other two were standing a bit behind him, Vengeance easily recognisable with his mottled silvers and greys rippling with the light. The other was not one Janus had met in person before, but the orange bowtie and suspenders clearly marked the unfamiliar side as Spite.

Apathy was frowning, having scooted behind Janus to prod at the back of his head. “You hit pretty hard, it would seem.” He hummed, parting Janus’ hair with feather-light fingers. “Not too terribly. It bled, but appears to have stopped that almost immediately. Will most likely take some weeks to properly heal, though.”

There were little pricks of pain where Apathy touched, but for the most part Janus was just numb and a little tingly, so he shrugged, content to let the other choose the next course of action - this was Apathy’s terf, after all.

After a minute or so Apathy stood and brushed his hands off on his robes, turning to look out over the desolate, rocky landscape. “I do not believe you are too much harmed. Vengeance, if you would be so kind as to escort Deceit back to his side of the Mindscape, I fear there are still a few tears in the boundary I need to stitch up.” He turned back to Janus, offering a wisp of a smile. “While a bit of a shock, I admit, it was a pleasure to see you again, Deceit.”

Janus managed to nod, head feeling a bit fuzzy. “Likewise.”

Apathy gave a little wave and swept away, heading down the rocks to a lower plateau, where an inky storm swirled in the distance. On his way he hopped over what may or may not have been the mangled corpse of one of Remus' abominations. 

Spite followed after, but not before taking a moment to stick his tongue out at Vengeance.

Vengeance in turn rolled his eyes, watching them go for a bit. Finally he looked down to Janus, holding out his hand - which was a little bloody, but Janus decided not to think too hard about that - and quirking his head to one side. “Well, guess we’d better get you home.”

Janus blinked in an attempt to shake away the threatening dizziness, bracing himself on one arm so he could reach up to take the silver side’s hand. “Sounds good to me.”

\-------

Virgil was decidedly a mess.

To be fair, it’s not like the rest of them were exactly ‘put together’ in any sense of the word.

Both twins were pacing, weapons out and itching for something to swing at. Patton was perched beside Thomas on the arm of the couch, chewing his lip as they both with wide eyes desperately watched where Logan and Virgil stood by the coffee table, too overwhelmed to sit still as they frantically bounced possibilities off each other, trying, seemingly in vain, to figure out what had happened to their resident serpent.

In short, it was complete chaos.

A complete chaos that came to an immediate screeching halt with a blinding flash from the kitchen.

Everyone froze, all eyes swivelling towards the interruption.

The light was gone as soon as it came, leaving Janus standing in the middle of the kitchen, hair askew and clothes dusty and hat nowhere to be seen, but appearing to have all his limbs at least.

The serpent blinked, as if not quite seeing properly, then in a jerk of movement lurched sideways, stumbling into the kitchen counter.

Everyone unfroze at once, and once again the room was in chaos.

Patton and Virgil half-guided half-dragged a frazzled Janus to the couch, Remus and Logan instantly looking him over for injuries, the latter summoning a first aid kit when he found the bloody patch on the back of the serpent’s head.

Roman and Thomas hovered behind the couch, not sure how to help but not wanting to leave either.

Finally - after a bit longer than it probably should have taken, to be honest - they had all calmed down enough to sit down and actually take turns talking for once.

Logan had bandaged Janus’ wound and was sitting next to him, holding an ice pack to the wound. The others were scattered along the couch, Remus and Patton perched on the coffee table.

Of course, there was a flurry of questions. The expected, “where were you”s and the “what was that door thing”s and of course the twins’ combined vow to slay whatever creature had injured their snake.

Janus was still rather out of it, but he finally got the twins to put away their weapons after assuring them a million times that his attacker had been none other than the gravity.

“Okay okay but  _ where _ were you?”

Janus wasn’t sure who had asked, but he supposed it didn’t really matter, as his answer would remain the same to any of them.

Apathy was doing his job, after all, keeping the residents of the subconscious out of Thomas’ sight where they could work peacefully. And Deceit wasn’t about to slack on his own job.

Apathy kept his side of the door locked, Janus kept this side locked. Although they rarely directly interacted, they certainly did work together a lot.

So Janus just shrugged, and if he blinked a little harder than he really needed to, took longer to focus on things than he actually needed to, well… it was just doing his job, right? He had to sell the part. “I don’t know.” He said, jaw slack in perfectly practiced confusion. “I don’t remember.”


End file.
